19th March

This winter's had a pretty brutal sting in the tail, with another substantial overnight snowfall making it very hard going for both the cold weather refugees and what newly arrived migrants were about; the only redeeming feature was that, like yesterday, the snow was largely gone by late afternoon. Golden Plovers and Meadow Pipits again made up the bulk of the numbers, with 600 or so of the former and in excess of 1000 of the latter spread about the island as a whole. Amongst the thinnish spread of back-ups the most noteworthy were 3 Firecrests, 2 Short-eared Owls and singles of Teal, Dunlin, Redshank, Jack Snipe, Black Redstart, Blackcap and Bullfinch at the Bill.